


bachelorette

by reconquer



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, First Time, Gender Dysphoria, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Pre-Canon, Puberty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 07:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19127470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconquer/pseuds/reconquer
Summary: Akito wakes up in a shit mood.





	bachelorette

**Author's Note:**

> this was.......very self indulgent! this fic has been clawing at me to get out forever because unfortunately akito was my favorite fruits basket character even in the fifth grade :) thank u amelia @ganseylesbian and chloe @lesbianjohnkeats for beta-ing this fic!!!
> 
> tw gender dysphoria, menstruation, unsafe binding, abuse (of the akito variety)
> 
> title is a bjork song, my ultimate fav akito song

Akito wakes up in a shit mood.

It’s summer, and a hot one at that. Akito’s bangs are stuck to her forehead and there’s sweat trickling down her back. The fan that whirs on the ceiling does nothing but push hot air around. Dull pain throbs behind her eyes and around her ankles and hips—actually, she’s sore everywhere. Growing pains, Hatori had said, reading from his college textbook even though classes don’t start for weeks. Akito has always been small, but she’d grown three inches in the last two months. She’s pissed that no one told her that growing hurts.

She unsticks herself from her sheets, making her way to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face and find her most lightweight yukata. She sashes it loosely—she’s still flat-chested, but she’d gained some weight around her thighs, and she doesn’t like how she looks when she belts it fully anymore. She wishes she looked more like Kureno does—straight silhouette, narrow hips, broadening shoulders. He’s got an Adam’s apple now, too, and his voice crackles when he talks.

Thinking about that makes Akito even angrier. She storms out of the bathroom, slamming the sliding door closed behind her so hard it bounces back open. She throws herself down onto her futon, already drained. Her head is pounding now, and she squeezes her eyes shut.

“...Akito?”

“ _What?_ ”

Akito cracks an eye open to look at Yuki, cowering behind the thin paper door of her bedroom. He’s wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts, reminding Akito of the sweat gathering under her belt.

“The servant brought tea. Do you want any?”

“No. It’s too fucking hot for tea.”

“Okay.” Yuki remains at the door, shifting from foot to foot.

“What? Why are you just standing there?”

“I...I don’t know.”

Akito huffs and stands up. “Fine. I’ll have tea with you. And stop grinding your teeth, I can hear it from all the way over here.”

“Sorry,” Yuki says, almost inaudibly.

Yuki stares out the window for all of breakfast. Akito doesn’t really care—she doesn’t feel much like talking. There’s a ball of pain forming in her lower stomach that’s clenching tighter and tighter by the minute.

“Stop,” she gasps. “I told you to _stop_ grinding your teeth.”

Yuki snaps his attention to Akito and stops, but his jaw is still clenched.

“Why do you do that? Doesn’t it hurt?”

“No,” Yuki says. He idly stirs his tea, making the teacup clatter against the saucer. “Lots of people do it.”

“You’re not going to have any teeth if you keep doing that.”

“That’s what my mom says.”

“Maybe you should start listening to—” Pain clenches tight and sharp in Akito’s belly and she gasps, pulling her knees in.

“Akito!” Yuki scoots around the table to sit by Akito’s side. “What’s wrong?”

“N—” Akito starts, but another wave of pain stops her. Yuki tries to hold her hand, but she shoves him away, using the window ledge as leverage to stand.

Akito’s throat is bone dry, and she can feel her face starting to burn. She shifts her thighs, just a little, and feels something wet and hot and disgusting between her legs. Yuki, still sprawled back on his elbows, watches Akito stride back into her bedroom and close the door behind her.

Akito can barely hear Yuki scrambling up in the other room over the blood pounding in her ears. She fumbles with her belt, opening the yukata, and unceremoniously sticks her hand into her briefs.

“Akito?” Yuki says from the other side of the door. She hastily ties the belt up and opens the door, finding herself nose-to-nose with Yuki.

Yuki’s face, easily flushed by the hot weather, pales when he sees Akito’s hand by her side, bright red with blood.

“I’ll go get Hatori,” he blurts, turning heel and bolting out of the room.

Akito likes to think she isn’t easily shaken. She’s omniscient, divine, the head of the family. But her vision is blurred, and she’s shaking as she watches blood swirl off her hand and down the bathroom sink drain.

“Thank you, Yuki.” Hatori’s deep voice out in the main room cuts through some of Akito’s panic.

“Is he okay?” Yuki asks.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Hatori says. “I think I saw Hatsuharu and Isuzu out in the courtyard. Go and keep them company.”

There’s a pause, then some soft words she can’t make out and, finally, the main door latching shut.

“Akito.” Akito’s eyes flick up, catching Hatori’s in the mirror. She lets out a ragged breath and goes down to her elbows on the countertop. “What happened?”

“I—I got my period.”

Hatori’s eyebrows raise minutely. “Well, it was going to happen someday.”

“ _Why?_ ” It sounds petulant, even to Akito’s own ears, and Hatori doesn’t dignify it with an answer.

“Do you have cramps?” Akito nods shakily. Hatori guides her to sit on the lid of the toilet while he digs around her medicine cabinet. He wordlessly hands her a bottle of painkillers and a small cup of water. Akito downs them quickly.

Hatori leans on the counter and starts texting. “Does it hurt a lot? Do you want a heating pad? I’m sending Shigure to the store for you.”

Akito grimaces. “Why Shigure?”

Hatori pauses his typing. “Would you rather me send Ayame?”

Akito shakes her head. Shigure’s going to be annoying and make fun of her, but Ayame would probably make a scene. Hatori’s doing her a kindness by not going to her mother, so she’ll have to let this one slide.

Akito starts to cry. She’s cried in front of Hatori before, but this time she feels _humiliated_. She puts her head between her knees, hand pressed against her lower stomach where the pain is still clenched tight.

She vaguely registers Hatori on his knees in front of her, smoothing her sweaty bangs away from her forehead and prying her fists away from her stomach, forcing her to sit up and look at him.

“Akito,” he says. “It’s going to be okay.”

Akito shakes her head and wipes furiously at her eyes. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right.” Hatori reaches up to cup Akito’s cheek. “I don’t understand.”

“My life is over,” Akito gasps, pulling her face out of Hatori’s hand.

“It’s not over,” Hatori says. “Your hormones are just making you—”

“What? Unreasonable?” Akito spits. “Get out.”

Hatori sighs one controlled breath through his nose. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Get out,” Akito repeats.

“Fine.” Hatori stands. “Shigure will be here soon.”

“I’m not letting him in.”

“You’re going to bleed through all your clothes.”

“I don’t care.”

Hatori looks like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t. He does as told.

By the time Shigure arrives and Akito’s forced to let him in (he can’t very well leave boxes of tampons outside of Akito’s door without raising suspicion), Akito’s sheets are stained with blood seemingly beyond repair. Shigure has the grace to look somewhat disturbed by the circle of blood soaking through the futon. He sits outside the closed bathroom door while Akito pores over the directions on the tampon box, but no matter what angle she holds it at, it fucking _hurts_ going in. It’s uncomfortable once she does get it inside, and there’s blood all over her hands and the tile floor.

“I have friends who are girls, you know,” Shigure calls from outside the bathroom. Anger flashes hot down Akito’s spine. “I can text and ask them for advice if you need. This is taking forever.”

Akito slides the door open with her foot. “Fuck you.”

Shigure starts, eyes widening at the sight of Akito.

“What, can’t handle a little blood?” Akito turns to the sink to rinse her hands, then wets a washcloth to dab the bloody insides of her thighs.

“You look like you belong in a horror movie,” Shigure says, grinning.

“Leave, if you’re just going to be an asshole.”

“I’m always an asshole.” Shigure grins wider.

Even so, he helps cover up the evidence, bundling the sheets to be sent out to wash and finding a good hiding place for the tampons where the little ones won’t find them. Akito spends the rest of the day sprawled on the tatami mats next to Shigure, too sweaty and irritated to actually seek physical comfort like she normally would. The pain has subsided to a dull ache, but disgust churns in her stomach and under her skin. The thought of her body growing out of its practically genderless state without her permission terrifies her. She watches the sun set over the western horizon, drowning in uncertainty. Maybe when she wakes up, this will all have been a bad dream.

Akito’s eyes drift shut. Shigure drools in his sleep, she notes, before letting them fall closed completely. The evening humidity presses down on her like a blanket, Shigure’s soft breathing next to her finally lulling her into unconsciousness.

 

Akito is sick a lot; she’s always been sickly. She’s no stranger to lethargy or pain.

When Kureno’s curse breaks, it is so breathtakingly painful that Akito can barely stand.

It feels like shrapnel inside her ribcage, like something detonated inside of her. She’s slammed with a migraine, and she can barely see through the black spots in her vision as she drags herself down the hall where she knows Kureno is. She has to paw at her own face to make sure blood isn’t seeping out from behind her eyes.

What hurts the worst is that it doesn’t seem like Kureno is in pain at all.

 

“I heard we’ve had a departure.”

Akito doesn’t get up from her futon. She doesn’t need to turn over to see that Shigure is gloating.

“Who told you?” Akito’s words are muffled by the sleeve of her kimono.

“I have my sources.”

Akito sits up then, whipping around to snarl at him. “Did you come just to hurt me?”

“No,” Shigure says. “I came to find out what happened.”

“You’re a cruel man.”

Shigure just shrugs. “Where’s Kureno?”

“He’s not leaving me, if that’s what you’re asking.” Akito takes a breath, then, before she can lose her nerve, blurts, “Would you?”

Shigure raises an eyebrow. “Would I what?”

“Leave me? If your curse broke?”

Shigure takes two big steps and sits down behind her on her futon, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her to his chest. “Of course not. You know I love you.”

“Oh, fuck _off._ ” Akito sends an elbow back into Shigure’s soft stomach. He lets out a small _oof_ and scoots away, barely. “Don’t fuck with me right now.”

“I wasn’t fucking with you.” Shigure smiles at her, leaning over so she has no choice but to look at him.

Akito lets tears spill out of her eyes. She also lets Shigure cradle her again, lets herself press her nose into the strip of skin above his collar. She can smell cigarettes and his deodorant, some pungent, musky-smelling kind that reminds her of the incense her father used to burn. Her heart still aches, but a little less.

 

Akito starts at an all-boys high school when she’s fifteen. She was fine with the homeschooling, but the adults insisted that it wouldn’t be befitting of the family head to not have a real high school diploma.

Her mother, helpful as always, sends Akito a package of sports bras as a starting gift, resulting in a full-blown, knock-down screaming match. Afterwards, Akito can just barely stop hyperventilating long enough to swallow the pill Hatori presses to her lips. It makes her feel woozy and out of sorts, but it calms her down.

She doesn’t even like the sports bras. She can see the seams through her uniform button-down, even with an undershirt on. She steals a bandage out of Hatori’s bag and uses that instead, pushing her breasts flat against her ribcage. It looks pretty convincing, in her opinion.

That works, for a while. She gets bruises, and there are deep indentations under her arms and criss-crossing her chest for hours after she takes the bandage off, but it doesn’t bother her too much.

That is, until she gets sick.

Tokyo’s cold, dry winters don’t agree with Akito. At the very least, she gets a cough that lasts for weeks, and that’s it, if she’s lucky.

She is not lucky the winter of her first year.

It starts off with a slight wheeze, then a cough, then a fever so high that she feels delusional. One of her classmates has to practically carry her to the nurse’s office, the starch-white walls of her school’s hallway spinning.

Hatori picks her up from the high school. He doesn’t say anything to her, just takes one look at her flushed face and turns to explain to the nurse that he is Akito’s older brother and he’s here to take her home.

“I want to bring you to the hospital,” Hatori says once they’re in the car.

“No,” Akito gasps.

“The nurse told me how high your temperature is,” Hatori says. “I’m surprised they didn’t send you there themselves.”

“I didn’t let them,” Akito spits. “And I won’t let you.”

Hatori closes his eyes, and Akito watches a muscle jump in his jaw. She crosses her arms, causing her to wheeze a little bit, and sinks into the passenger seat. After a long moment, Hatori starts the car and starts in the direction of the Sohma estate.

Hatori brings her to the office he works out of at the estate. He’s still in college, and there is an older man who is the Sohma family doctor, but being Akito’s personal caretaker means he can use the office if he wants. The older doctor used to take care of Akito, when Hatori was younger, but Akito strongly prefers Hatori now. Besides, he works at a clinic or a hospital or something; he’s not always at the Sohma estate.

“Fever reducers,” Hatori says, handing Akito two cups after she settles on the examination table. “Take off your shirt, please.”

Akito freezes. “Why?”

“Because you’re prone to upper respiratory infection and I need to check that you don’t have one. You’re having trouble breathing, aren’t you?”

Akito nods slowly, but makes no move to unbutton her shirt.

“Akito.” Hatori stops fiddling with his equipment and turns to fully face her. “I don’t know what your problem is right now, but if you don’t do it I really will bring you to the hospital.”

Akito knows he’s serious. She shrugs off the suit jacket, shakily unbuttons her shirt, and then pulls the undershirt over her head.

“ _Akito._ ” Hatori’s voice is harsh, and she flinches. “What have you done?”

“I—” Akito chokes out. Her heart is racing. Hatori is already unwinding the bandage, and it’s pooled around her waist within seconds. Hatori presses on a patch of angry, red-raw skin on her side and she winces, pushing away from him.

“This is seriously dangerous,” Hatori says.

“What else am I supposed to do?” Akito snaps.

Hatori pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know.”

“Very helpful.”

“I’ll do some research,” Hatori amends. “Does it hurt?”

“Of course it fucking hurts.”

“This is why you’re having trouble breathing, you know.”

“Obviously.”

“You should take the rest of the week off,” Hatori says. “For this alone. I wouldn’t be surprised if your lungs are inflamed.”

Hatori presses the cold stethoscope to her chest. It’s freezing on her overheated skin.

“Can I have an ice pack when you’re done?” Akito asks, resting her cheek on Hatori’s shoulder.

“Sure.” He moves the stethoscope around to the back.

“So are my lungs inflamed?”

“No.” Hatori takes the stethoscope off and sets it on the counter. “You have an infection, though. I’ll get you antibiotics.”

Akito nods and reaches for her undershirt. Hatori pulls it away.

“Nothing tight,” Hatori says. “Put your button-up on. I have a sweater around here you can borrow, it should be enough to cover you up.”

Akito fumes, but does as he says. The sweater is oversized, but Akito keeps her arms self-consciously folded over her chest during the short walks to and from Hatori’s car. Hatori lets Akito collapse onto her futon, gets her an ice pack, then informs her he’s going to the pharmacy.

“Try and get some rest,” he says. Akito’s back is already turned to him.

Her whole body is shaking with rage. She hits her pillow, then does it again, but it doesn’t make her feel better. She hates Hatori for talking down to her, the Sohmas for expecting this out of her, her mother for making her this way. She wants to scream, or to wear shorts in the summer. She wants a fucking dick.

She falls into the halfway-sleep of fevers, feeling like she’s neither awake nor asleep. Hatori comes back and shakes her awake to take medicine, but it’s blurry and she can’t really remember it later.

She dreams of the banquet. The rabbit sits on her lap, the rat on her shoulder. Her hair is long, and her chest is flat. The monkey titters and peels an orange. The cat appears, nudging Akito’s wrist with his face; Akito can feel the rat’s fur puff up and his teeth start to brux. The cat’s hackles raise in response to the other animal’s gazes and he bats at the platter of fish, angry that sauce is sticking to his paw, and kicks it until it flips over. Sauce splatters onto Akito’s hanfu; the now dismembered fish head startles the dog awake; the bird screams; the horse steps in a bowl of noodles. The dream dissolves.

 

Yuki’s coughing wetly on the floor. Akito can see blood on the inside of his mouth, staining his lips red.

“Shouldn’t we get someone?” Ritsu asks. Annoyance pulses through Akito; she doesn’t like Ritsu very much.

“Why?” Akito turns to face Ritsu. He’s playing with his long hair—he’s _always_ playing with his hair—twisting a strand tightly around his index finger and letting it go. “Do you think he’s going to die?”

“I—I don’t know,” he squeaks.

“Ritsu, stop being useless.” Shigure barges into the main room, trailed by Hatsuharu and Isuzu, the former looking concerned and the latter looking downright pissed. Akito hadn’t noticed they’d left; apparently, neither did Ritsu, who mutters, “Sorry,” to his socks.

“You could’ve at least gotten him some water,” Shigure says to Akito. Haru helps Yuki sit up and hands him a water bottle. Akito shrugs.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Akito picks at a non-existent thread on the sleeve of her kimono.

“I guess there is none,” Shigure smirks. Haru offers Yuki cough medicine. Momiji offers him a lollipop.

 

“That was mean,” Kureno says, later. Akito glances up from her schoolwork. Kureno is typically not so forthcoming; they tend to spend their nights together in comfortable silence. Every once in a while Kureno will tell Akito a story about his soccer team or about a dog that followed him and Shigure around the grounds for hours, but mostly they work in companionable silence.

“What was?” Akito frowns.

“What you did to Yuki today.”

“I didn’t do anything to Yuki today.”

“I know.” Kureno puts down his pencil. “That’s why it was mean.”

“What are you talking about?” Akito snaps. “Just shut up and do your homework.”

Kureno does.

 

She has sex for the first time when she is seventeen and Kureno is nineteen. She’s intensely jealous of his cock, of the way he shudders when she strokes it. She sits on his lap, and they both moan when he’s inside her. It feels _good,_ full, and she clutches his broad shoulders as she grinds her hips down and up. His hands scrabble on her back, fingernails digging into the soft skin of her ass. She imagines that she’s him, dick hard and wet with her own fluids. He comes; she doesn’t.

 

Ayame wants to take Akito out for her eighteenth birthday, but Hatori persuades him not to—it’s not like they can just go to a bar. They have a family dinner instead, even inviting the two babies, Hiro and Kisa. They’re both nine, and Hiro in particular is precocious. Haru and Momiji entertain them while Ayame pours Akito her first drink. Yuki quietly watches his brother twine his arm with Shigure’s while they do shots over Hatori’s head.

Eventually the kids go home, but the adults stay—Akito, Shigure, Ayame, Hatori, Kureno, and Ritsu. Shigure had convinced Hatori to let sixteen-year-old Kagura stay, too. Ayame sets up sake bombs on a mahjong table, and they bang on it until an older servant fusses at them to stop. After everyone leaves, Akito lets Kureno eat her out—he’s been asking, promising it will feel good. She decides it doesn’t feel like much of anything.

 

Akito initiates her and Shigure’s first kiss; for a moment, nothing happens, and she’s terrified he’s going to push her away.

He doesn’t.

Being with Shigure is different than Kureno.

He’s bigger than Kureno, and hairier. She runs her hands up his forearms, feeling protruding veins and arm hair, deep envy mixing sharply with arousal. His five o’ clock shadow scratches her skin in a way that Kureno’s doesn’t, and seeing the irritated skin on her neck and chest afterwards makes her flush.

She dreams that she’s Shigure, and she relishes the view of the happy trail on her flat stomach. She’s hard; it feels like a tensed muscle, and she desperately wants to touch herself, but she can’t move her arms. She wakes up hot and flustered, wetness squelching between her legs.

She sobs into her pillow and hits it once before heading to the bathroom to wipe herself dry.

 

“Shigure.” Akito whips around, opening and closing doors in the hall. “Shigure!”

“Calm down,” Kureno says. He grabs Akito’s arm but she shakes him off. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“This is so fucked,” Akito snarls. “How dare he. How dare they both.”

“Akito, just stop and think for a second,” Kureno begs. “It could be good for him!”

“And what about me?” Akito slams another door closed. “Doesn’t anyone care about what would be good for _me_?”

“Of course we do,” Kureno assures her. “Akito—”

Shigure’s behind the next door Akito opens, Yuki kneeling in front of him. Yuki starts, eyes widening when he sees her.

“How _dare_ you.” Akito strides forward and grabs a handful of Yuki’s hair, jerking his head to the side. He whimpers a little; Akito pulls harder. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Akito,” Shigure starts, but Akito’s snarling at him before he can finish.

“And you!” She lets Yuki go and strides to Shigure, grabbing two fistfuls of his kimono. “What are you, going behind my back, taking Yuki from me?”

“No one’s taking him from you,” Shigure says calmly. “We just think it might be better for Yuki to live on the outside for a while.”

“Why?” Akito pounds on Shigure’s chest. “What’s so wrong with living here?”

“Nothing.” Shigure gently pries Akito’s fingers off of him. “We’re just...trying something new. He’ll be with me, anyhow.”

“What good does that do me?”

“Akito.” Akito turns. Yuki is still kneeling, head bowed, fists clenched into the fabric of his pants. “Please, just let me try. Please.” He sinks down, letting his forehead touch the floor.

“ _Fine._ ” Akito rips her hands out of Shigure’s kimono. “But don’t forget that I let you do this.”

“No. Never.”

“Out of the kindness of my own heart.”

Yuki nods, his hair fanning out on the mats as he does. When he sits up, Akito thinks she sees something like love in his eyes.

 

“She really is ugly,” Akito tells Shigure. They’re lying naked on Akito’s futon. There’s come on Akito’s belly, and Shigure’s mouth is still wet from Akito.

Shigure groans. “You’re not very good at pillow talk.”

“Fuck you.”

“I need ten minutes.”

“You’re disgusting.” Shigure hums, wrapping an arm around Akito and pressing his mouth to her neck.

“You’re the one talking about a teenager after sex.”

“I thought you liked teenagers.”

Shigure props himself up on his elbow. “And what if I did?”

Akito grimaces, pushing herself up, and starts searching the vicinity of her futon for her underwear.

“Aw, don’t be like that.” Shigure grabs Akito, wraps his arms around her waist and hooks his chin over her shoulder.

“Then don’t be disgusting.”

“You know I can’t.”

Shigure rubs her off like that, one hand on her clit and the other pinching her nipple on this side of too-hard. She comes around his fingers with her head thrown back on his shoulder, shakes until her knees feel like jelly, and then they fuck again.

 

Akito dreams of the banquet. Bells clang in her ears. The dog watches the tiger play with a piece of mochi, batting it between her paws; the rat is furrowing chrysanthemum away into the folds of Akito’s furisode; the rabbit is shitting on a plate of lotus root. The cat watches, poised on the cushion opposite Akito. His pupils are pinpricks; his claws are protracted, tearing into the fabric.

When Akito wakes, her sheets are stained with blood.

 

Tohru’s eyes are nearly swollen shut. Her delicate wrists are wrapped in bandages, and her knuckles are bruised black and blue. There’s still blood matted in her hair.

 _She really is ugly,_ Akito thinks as Tohru smiles and beckons her in.

“Are you alright?” Tohru’s voice is scratchy.

“You’re the one in the hospital,” Akito mutters.

“I heard what happened,” Tohru says. “With Kureno.”

Akito sits.

“Yes,” Akito says. “I stabbed him.”

Tohru rests her hand palm-up on the bed, looking at Akito through her slitted eyes.

“Are you afraid of me?” Akito asks.

“No,” Tohru says.

“It’s coming to an end, you know.”

“Well.” Tohru shifts to glance out the window. Akito can see the edge of stitches under her hairline. “It was going to happen someday.”

Rage tears through Akito. She bolts to her feet, pushing her palms flat on the bed, caging Tohru in.

“What do you know about it? How could you know anything?”

Akito’s close enough to Tohru to smell the iodine on her skin. Tohru twists her face away from Akito’s, her breaths shaky.

“I thought you said you weren’t afraid of me?”

“I’m not,” Tohru says, more breath than voice. She brings a trembling hand up to Akito’s face and traces the curve of her cheekbone. “This won’t be easy for them either.”

“You don’t know.”

“I do,” Tohru insists. “You’re a part of their lives. It’s going to hurt them to lose you.”

“No one’s losing anyone,” Akito snarls. “They won’t leave me. They won’t.”

“They might.”

Akito feels her lip curl, and she snatches Tohru’s hand away from her face. Tohru gasps in pain, trying to squirm out of Akito’s grip.

“You don’t know anything,” Akito gasps. “We’re bound to each other.”

“People love you, Akito,” Tohru says. There’s pain in her voice, and Akito can feel Tohru’s muscles spasming in her own hand. “They do. But you can’t force love.”

Akito throws Tohru’s hand down and slumps back down into the chair. Tohru curls over, protecting her hurt arm with her body. Akito can hear her crying.

“I don’t know what to do.” Akito buries her face in her hands.

Tohru hiccups and wipes her nose. When she sits up to face Akito, there are tears on her cheeks.

“You just need to give them time.”

“I don’t know how.”

Tohru smiles. “I’ll help you.”

She reaches out her palm again. Akito takes it.

 

Akito dreams that she is a child. She is in a room full of mirrors, and she can see her reflection in all of them. Her kimono is heavy on her shoulders, and it’s too long, tangling between her legs.

The cat lounges belly-up in front of one of the mirrors, licking his paw with his eyes squished shut. Wind chimes sound somewhere, and the cat’s ears perk up. He stretches before getting up and pawing over to Akito.

Akito watches him warily. She’s been scratched by cats before, and she can’t quite remember what happened when she was, but she knows she doesn’t like it.

The cat lets out a little _mrrp_ , a soft trill of the tongue. He rubs his face on Akito’s leg, tail swishing, and leaves the room.

Akito watches him go in the reflection of the mirrors. Then he stops, peering up at her over the edge of the engawa. He makes a curious noise and runs his paw on the panelling.

 _He’s waiting for me_ , Akito thinks. The cat blinks slowly.

Akito takes off her kimono, letting it pool on the tatami mats, and follows the cat out.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! YES i fucked up some ages. namely a certain country's drinking age. dont worry about it.
> 
> also yes they use cell phones because i'm using the reboot timeline let hatori have his flip phone
> 
> i'm also including some tasting notes if you will! i packed a lot of mythological references into this fic, and if you would like an explanation of the symbolism and mythology i used, you can find that post here: https://sophelstien.tumblr.com/private/185431043837/tumblr_psqjwfU9s91qefqte
> 
> and if you care to reblog the fic itself: https://sophelstien.tumblr.com/post/185431163902/bachelorette-reconquer-fruits-basket-archive
> 
> if you have any other questions or just feel like saying hi, feel free to message me on tumblr @sophelstien or my fruits basket sideblog @yukisohmasmokesweed !!!!


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